


Para Bellum

by eirabach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Enchanted Forest AU, F/M, Lieutenant Duckling, Lieutenant Jones, Violence, War, Whump, admiral swan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: If you want peace, prepare for war.





	Para Bellum

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the pretzel week challenge on tumblr. Prompt: Coworkers in the Enchanted Forest.
> 
> This is a pretty dark take on Lieutenant Duckling, but I hope you enjoy regardless!

The birth of Crown Prince Leo of the Enchanted Forest had been met with rapturous joy, both by his shocked parents and by the kingdom he would one day rule. A dozen banquets were held in honour of the babe before he could do much more than mewl at his mother’s breast, a hundred ships launched in his name before he could speak it.

  
And his sister was probably the most delighted of all.

  
As Crown Princess, Emma had taken little pleasure in the intrigues of court - or of courting, for that matter - always far more at home with a weapon in her hand than when writing letters of diplomacy. For twenty eight years she had managed with a sort of grudging acceptance of the role life had bestowed on her, and then, at what felt like the eleventh hour -

  
Snow White had borne a son.

  
And Emma was free.

  
–

  
She casts a shrewd eye over the Royal Dockyard, watching as men swing from the rigging of the larger ships and cast lines to others waiting below. It’s alive, this place, alive with thousands of men rushing about to see to their duties, alive with the creak and groan of the wooden hulls as they sink and rise with the tide.

  
It makes her feel alive, too.

All her dreams of adventure are set out before her on the crystal waters. This is her chance to be seen, not as some coddled princess, but as a woman with fire and determination in her very soul. A chance to prove herself. A chance that matters.

  
“Are you quite certain about this, Emma?” her father asks, two steps behind her in a uniform much like her own except for the row of glittering medals pinned to his breast. “These men are hard men who live hard lives, they may not take easily to a woman giving them orders.”

  
“They don’t have a choice,” Emma says mildly, though her eyes narrow slightly. “If Leo had not been born, I’d have been their Queen. Seems to me accepting a woman as Admiral shouldn’t come as too much of a strain.”

  
“As you wish.” says her father, reaching forward to lay a hand on her shoulder. “But I should be more comfortable if I knew you had a solid board of officers behind you.”

  
“I have a cutlass,” Emma says, turning to her father with a raised brow. “And I know how to use it. If that should not prove to be enough of an encouragement I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  
Somebody clears their throat, and she whips back around - admonishment on the tip of her tongue - to see a young Lieutenant, his handsome brow creased in a frown as he sweeps his eyes over her and her newly starched Admiral’s uniform.

  
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” he says, and lifts one perfect eyebrow. “That is what they say, is it not?”

  
Emma snorts, somewhat discombobulated by his sudden appearance and lingering perusal of her form.

  
“Fine words from a man who doesn’t bow before his King,” she says, her brow lifting slightly - something in his expression setting her entirely too on edge for her first day in such a pivotal role. “Show some respect, sailor.”

  
“Now, Emma,” her father soothes again, and she swallows a wave of irritation as the lieutenant’s lips twitch as though he’s holding back a smile. “This is Lieutenant Jones, one of the finest officers serving with us. He’s agreed to show you the ropes - as it were.”

  
The King and the lieutenant share a conspiratorial glance, and Emma sneers.

  
“I don’t require assistance, father, and certainly not from _him_.”

  
“It wasn’t a request,” says her father shortly. “This isn’t a game, Emma.”

  
The lieutenant’s lips twitch again, and she suspects that he might disagree with her father on that point at least.

  
“I look forward to assisting you, your highness,” he says, with a formality that makes her want to throw things. “In any way I can.”

  
“You can start,” she snaps, “by keeping out of my way.”

  
–

  
Suffice it to say, he doesn’t.

  
He follows her around the docks like a shadow, always at her shoulder when she stops to speak to the men or shake a captain’s hand. She expects his presence is supposed to be reassuring somehow, that’s certainly the impression he give as he opens doors for her, his sharp eyes scouting for dangers she’s perfectly capable of seeing for herself. He never leaves her side, and it’s suffocating.

  
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she asks one afternoon as the heat beats down on the back of their necks and the smell of tar rises from the boards of the vessel she’s inspecting.

  
“Anything better than what, Admiral?” he asks, apparently nonplussed as she glares at him with her hands on her hips.

  
“Than following me about like one of my mother’s lap dogs,” she spits. “You’re an officer in my navy, and yet when was the last time you stepped foot on board ship, hmm?”

  
“Your father - ”

  
“My father is the King, he is not your commanding officer Lieutenant Jones. And I - as your commanding officer - am suggesting that you find something better to do.”

  
“The King made me your attache,” he says, a little furrow between his brows the only sign that he’s discomfited by her sudden anger. “I cannot abandon my post without his permission.”

  
Emma flexes her fingers, imagines wrapping them around his pretty throat, and swallows a growl.

  
“Paperwork,” she sneers. “You’re in charge of paperwork.”

  
He balks a little at that, and she smiles slightly vindictively at the way his nose wrinkles in distaste.

“You want me to be your secretary?”

  
“I want you to go away,” she shoots back. “But as you won’t - ”

She lets the sentence hang in the air unfinished until his face falls back into the smooth, neutral expression expected of an officer.

  
“As you wish.”

  
–

  
There’s not quite as much romance in the navy as Emma might have dreamed of, and quite a lot more paperwork.

She pours over reports of Queen Regina’s ever expanding navy, the letters from their ambassador to her kingdom becoming ever more fraught as the weeks pass.

  
Still, she might not have minded the hours sequestered away in her office if only she’d been left with just the sea breeze for company.  
Sadly, of all the thousands of memoranda he’s brought her, Lieutenant Killian Jones appears to have missed that one.

  
“Hairstyles,” she says wryly, lowering the parchment and fixing him with a grim stare. “Really?”

  
“Indeed, Admiral Swan,” he says, his blue eyes fixed, as they always are nowadays, on something just over her left shoulder. “We’ve been too long in port, the ratings are becoming slovenly in their appearance. We should act swiftly before their layabout ways reflect on their work.”

  
“And is that something you’ve noticed?” she asks, her voice as level as she can manage. “While you’ve been bringing me notes about the over-generosity of the rum ration and the correct shade of paint for a ship of the line? Are the men under you failing in their duties while you badger me with such. Inconsequential. Matters?”

  
She punctuates her words by screwing the parchment up into a tiny ball, and flinging it over his shoulder to where it lands near to a wastebasket overflowing with what must be hundreds of its brothers.

  
“No, Admiral,” he says without so much as flinching. “The men are as loyal and as hardworking as ever they were.”

  
“Then what does it matter!” she bellows. “Why should I care what fabric they use for their ribbons, or how they spend their recompense on leave? I don’t know that you’ve noticed, Lieutenant, but we are about to go to war.”

  
His eyes finally snap to hers then, and she would be surprised by the fire she sees burning in them if she wasn’t so angry herself.

  
“I am aware, your Highness,” he spits, the venom with which he speaks her royal title making her jaw drop. “Perhaps it is you who should consider the level of discipline required for a naval unit at a time of war before you dismiss my concerns so casually!”

  
“How dare you,” she breathes, standing so that they are eye to eye and she can see the way the flush rises on his cheeks when she stares him down. “How dare you address me in this fashion.”

  
“How dare _you_ ,” he counters, his eyes blazing. “You were the one who told me this was not a game, remember?”

  
“What would you have me do? Whip them for unpolished buttons? Keelhaul a man for a case of the pox?”

  
“They have to trust you - believe that you can take them into battle - if you heard the things they said, your Highness, please - ”

  
She turns her back on him, looking instead to where her flagship sits at anchor, men scurrying over her like a hundred worker ants.

  
“I’ve heard enough,” she says, the dismissal clear.

  
“Admiral - ”

  
“You are dismissed, lieutenant. Permanently. I hear your brother is in need of a navigator on the Jewel. Go make yourself of use to him, because you’ve long outlived your usefulness to me.”

  
She hears the creak of the floorboards behind her as if he’s thinking of moving towards her, but she rests her hand on her cutlass and he obviously thinks better of it.

  
“Very well,” he says, “Good day, Admiral.”

  
She doesn’t dare turn around until the door latches shut behind him.

  
–

  
War comes to their realm eventually, the Evil Queen Regina’s machinations finally bearing their poisoned fruit.

  
The navy is to be deployed at the earliest possible moment in order to defend the coastal regions from Regina’s interest, and Emma is to go along with them.

  
“My own command?” she asks, trying not to sound too much like a child on Yule morning.

  
Her parents exchange a look.

  
“You lack experience,” her father says lowly. “It would be better to sail with another captain in your first action. You are familiar with Captain and Lieutenant Jones are you not? And The Jewel of the Realm is -”

  
Emma sways back on her heels, horrified.

  
“You have got to be kidding me.”

  
“Excuse me?” her mother says, lifting a warning brow that only serves to rankle Emma further.

  
“You have got to be kidding me, Your Highness.”

  
“Emma, this is - “

  
“An honour?” she scoffs. “Hardly.”

  
“Unavoidable. Queen Regina’s forces have been gathering for weeks now, and we need to be prepared for - ”

  
“I know what we need to be prepared for, mother. And we will be prepared. But I’m begging you, please. As your daughter. Anyone but him.”

  
It’s almost too much to bear, the thought of him in such close quarters with his petty memoranda and his too blue eyes. He’ll probably even measure out her rum ration.

  
She’d rather drown.

  
“Emma,” her father says. “Think of it from our point of view. You’re our daughter, and war -” he takes a deep shuddering breath and Emma casts her eyes down to the ground, shamefaced. “Let us have this much, please. Let us see you with those who would protect you.”

  
“I can protect myself,” she mumbles sullenly, the heat rising in her cheeks as she dares to imagine Lieutenant Jones having to do anything so cliche as come to her rescue.

  
“I don’t doubt it,” says her father, and Emma looks back up to catch the glint in his eye. “But I wager Lieutenant Jones would enjoy having the chance to try.”

  
–

  
They leave to thunderous cheers, the whole kingdom crushed onto the dockside to see Admiral Swan’s flagship set sail against the enemy.

  
Captain Liam Jones is a fine man and a finer officer. He accepts her onto his ship with a sweeping bow, and guides her through the many decks of her flagship with a seaman’s experience and the devotion of a lover. He accepts her at his table, allows her the privilege of sleeping in his quarters even though that means his brother is ousted to sleep with the ranks.

  
(She has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at the way prim, proper Lieutenant Jones sulks his way down the corridor, his kit bag slung over his slouched shoulders.)

  
It makes his dismissal even harder to bear.

  
Captain Jones has no time for her suggestions as he sequesters himself away with his officers, his expression souring whenever she speaks up about some intelligence received from her mother’s birds.

  
“I thank you, your Highness,” he says, never looking up from his maps. “But this is a ship of the line, and best left to the attentions of experts.”

  
“You think my father a fool,” she says in reply, biting back the words she’d rather say. “That he would appoint to the admiralty an idiot?”

  
“That’s not what he means,” Lieutenant Jones says from where he’s fixed on his own charts, his sextant in hand.

  
“Is it not, little brother?” the Captain shoots back, and when he looks at her she sees the lines around his eyes, the tightness in his brow, and bites back her retort.

  
He’s frightened, she realises. She wonders why she’s not.

  
The other men watch her warily, the whispers behind their hands always too low to catch but the meaning still clear. Women are unlucky; little more than sirens sent to lure men to their deaths. Weak and foolish and frightened.

  
It’s ironic, in a way, that she is none of these things, and these nervous, shifty men still think themselves superior. She’d almost pity them, but, after all, that isn’t her job.

  
Lieutenant Jones watches her warily too, but it’s not fear she sees in the furrow between his brows, not disapproval. She hardly knows what to call it, only that it catches behind her breastbone sometimes, sets her feet steadier on the rolling deck.  
She both prefers it and doesn’t, the way he looks at her when he thinks she isn’t looking back.

  
More and more she finds that she is.

  
It isn’t that he’s any less irritating on board ship. If anything he’s even more so, his silly hat (no sillier than hers but that’s hardly the point) bobbing up and down as he takes roll, the low certainty in his voice carrying across the deck as he reprimands some young deckhand who’s been into the rum. But there’s something more to him here, something in the way he sways with the movement of the ship, his feet sure in even the highest swells, that fascinates her.

  
For a woman who’s never truly belonged anywhere, seeing a man in his element can verge on the distracting.

  
“You’d do better if you were concentrating,” he calls from the helm one night as she practices her drills. “Any enemy worth his salt would have run you through by now.”

  
She scowls, blowing a strand of hair from her face, and turns towards him, her hands on her hips.

  
“I’ve been trained by the finest knights in my parents’ employ, Lieutenant. I assure you I could take any man on this ship and have him weeping like an infant in no time at all”

  
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he says, and she’s sure she sees the flash of his teeth before his voice returns to something a little more professional. “I meant no offence, Admiral.”

  
Emma tests the weight of her sword in her hand, and allows herself a small, sly smile.

  
“And yet I have taken it, and I must have satisfaction, sir.”

  
Even in the darkness she can see the way he stiffens at her playful tone, and not for the first time she wishes she hadn’t been set against him from the outset. He’s not all bad, and she hasn’t many friends aboard ship. Hasn’t many friends anywhere, not really.

  
“Well,” she calls, turning her wrist so that her sword beckons him closer. “What of it?”

  
“How could I disobey,” he says, winding a rope around the helm to hold it steady and stepping down to the main deck, his hand on his own cutlass. She scoffs, stepping back and allowing him to circle her as she watches his footwork.

  
“That never seems to have stopped you before.”

  
She sees his intent a moment before he moves, their swords clashing as she follows his attack with one of her own.

  
“That’s a little unfair,” he says through gritted teeth as she forces him back. “It’s not my fault you took against me from the off.”

He spins, a move more pirate than anything, and she drops her guard just long enough for him to catch her sword with his own and send shudders through her arm.

  
“Not shabby,” she mutters, before twisting her body to block his next move. “I don’t take well to men telling me what to do.”

  
“Me?” he huffs as she takes the upper hand again, “Or your father?”

  
She grimaces, and his eyes light up.

  
“Ah, I see.”

  
“I have spent,” she pants out as their dance picks up speed, “my whole life doing what is expected of me, this, this is - ”

  
“Yours?”

  
“Yes,” she says, finally spotting a break in the flashing of steel and lunging forward to press the point of her sword to his soft throat. “Mine.”

  
He swallows hard, and she watches the rise and fall of his throat under her blade.

  
(There are many things she’s never been allowed to want, after all. Things that princesses don’t, but women, oh women do.)

  
“It’s late,” he finally says, and she realises that the blade has slipped sideways and they’re breathing each other’s air, their noses almost brushing. “Goodnight, your Highness.”

  
“Admiral,” she murmurs, and he smiles.

  
“As you wish.”

  
–

  
It comes upon them unexpectedly, the perfect storm of watch change and the blinding brilliance of a summer sky means that the enemy ship is almost upon them before Captain Jones’ bellow reaches the ears of the young man at the helm.

  
“Come about! Hard to port! Battle stations!”

  
Emma stands, statue-like, at the bow watching the ominous shadow of the other ship fall over the rapidly shrinking channel between them. The bosun’s whistle sounds, and the Jewel of the Realm seems to vibrate as a hundred men appear from every nook and cranny, their faces severe and their eyes focussed.  
None of them even seem to notice her.

None except him.

  
He’s in hurried conference with his brother, his hat askew and his shirt ruffled from the haste with with which he’d risen from his slumber, and it sets her heart pounding with more than just terror.

  
She won’t let the men see that, though. Won’t let him see. She can’t. Instead she sets her chin high, fixes her hands behind her back, and faces down the concerned stares of the brothers Jones with blazing eyes of her own.

  
Liam sends his brother over with a quick elbow before turning back to the looming enemy, and she knows perfectly well what the next words out of his mouth will be.

  
“Your Highness,” he says, and proves her right. “You must below.”

  
“I must do no such thing,” she hisses, wary of listening ears. “I am Admiral of the Fleet.”

  
“You are a Princess of the realm,” he answers back, his eyes pleading. “We cannot risk…”

  
“My death? Rather more likely below, Lieutenant. I’m not a mermaid.”

  
“No,” he says, and when he looks up at her through long lashes she can see what his words cost him. They cost her more. “The distraction.”

  
She gapes at him for a moment until righteous fury sends her shoving past him to where Liam is directing his deck gunners into position.

  
“What is the meaning of this?” she spits, her hands trembling with the urge to strike. “How dare you dismiss a superior officer in this manner!”

  
“I, Admiral?” he says without looking at her. “I do not have time for petty demands right now. Killian, take her below.”

  
She sneers as Lieutenant Jones tries to take her arm, snarling obscenities under her breath as he lifts the hatch and chivvies her below.

  
“I won’t forget this,” she cries to Liam, and she hears more than sees the shake of his head as she’s enveloped in darkness.

“May you live to remember it, your Highness.”

  
–

  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she roars, struggling against his iron grip as he drags her down through the steaming galley, past the wide-eyed powder boys and their grim-faced masters until he finally releases her, shoving her through the door of his brother’s quarters and filling the doorframe with his body as she attempts to shoulder her way past. “This is my ship! My ship!”

  
“It flies your flag, your Highness,” he says, his voice tight as she shoves against his chest. “But you are not a soldier. You will be safer below.”

  
“I’m your Admiral,” she spits. “I order you to allow me back on deck this instant!”

  
“Is that what you want?” he asks, spit at the corner of his mouth as he loses his calm veneer. “Is your pride worth the battle? How many men’s lives are you willing to sacrifice for a good tale to share at your next ball?”

  
The ship keels hard to port, and she has to grab hold of the collar of his jacket to keep her footing.

  
“None. Of course none,” she bites out, her knuckles white as she tightens her grip and spits forth the only weapon in her arsenal. “But it’s my duty, Killian. You understand that, don’t you?”

  
“I understand enough of duty,” he says, and the anger fades from his expression only to be replaced with something both a little more like longing and far more frightening, “to know that I cannot keep an account of myself when I know you are in danger.”

  
She lets go of his collar as though the wool has burned her, stumbling back until the unnatural tilt and shudder of the deck (the deck, not him, never him and his too blue, too soft eyes. Never.) send her groping for something to cling on to, her hat sliding over her eyes and making her feel like a child playing dress up.

Lieutenant Jones watches her for a moment longer, a myriad of emotions she can’t begin to name playing over his features before the ship gives another great lurch - this one to starboard and answered by a volley of cannon fire that makes her ears ring - and he offers her a small, stiff bow.

  
“Godspeed, Admiral,” he says solemnly. “May you forgive me in the next life if not in this.”

  
She sees the grim turn to his mouth as he closes the door, hears the barrel being dragged into place beyond it, but the ship heaves and shudders beneath her, the windows rattling in their frames as the enemy ship begins to sight their own guns, and by the time she gets there, it’s too late.

  
–

  
Magic is feared by the people, or at least that’s what Blue had always told her.

  
Memories are long in this Kingdom, Emma, and the Dark One’s cruelties were many.

  
So she’s kept hers quiet, practicing parlour tricks for her brother’s amusement and reading what few books she can find, but otherwise the Princess’s skills are a secret kept to the family rooms of the castle and the most trusted of her parent’s inner circle.

  
And now the Royal Navy, apparently.

  
The crash of the door as she sends it flying from its hinges is subsumed by another scream of cannon fire and the sound of splintering wood. The Jewel lists once more, but it’s heavier this time, the creak of her bulkheads more a death rattle than a groan as Emma skids onto the gun deck, her boots slick against the red sea that greets her.

  
A man lies dead at her feet, his guts sprawling towards the great gaping hole the last broadside has left in the Jewel’s side, the bitter taste of gunpowder overpowering everything but the pathetic moans of the other men who crawl about, limbless and blinded by shrapnel, their knees dark with the dead man’s bile.

  
Three powder boys are crouched in the corner, the middle one staring up at her with unseeing eyes. His face is black from his duties, his lips drawn back to expose bloodstained teeth that chatter incoherently.

  
“What’s your name?” she barks, her heart hammering as a wave crests against the wounded hull and sends salt spraying viciously across the raw stumps of the injured. Doesn’t even know why she stops apart from she can’t leave this boy in this hellscape. “What’s your name, boy? Come with - come with me.”

  
“He can’t miss,” says one of his companions. “He’s dead, Miss.”

  
“He’s not dead,” she snaps. “He’s moving.”

  
The second boy looks at her, and then down to his own arm, and she follows the line of his gaze to where the middle boy’s bowels rest in his friend’s hand, vomit and shit pooling beneath him like oil on the water of his lifeblood.

The third boy is unmoving. Bloodshot eyes fixed forever on his gun, his body untouched but for the thin line of gore dripping from his nose.

  
“We’re all dead, Miss,” says the second boy. “God forgive us.”

  
“God forgive us,” she mutters against the bile that lies thick at the back of her throat. “Forgive me, forgive me.”

  
_In this life or the next._

  
Suddenly it’s not a nameless boy dying before her, but Killian. Killian’s starched uniform torn and bloodied, Killian’s smile drawn red like a slash across his beautiful face, and she’s running, running, pitiful apologies dying on a gasping breath as she bolts through the galley dodging flame and splinter. The thundering of the lighter guns above her head and the hoarse shouts of her officers the only things she cares for as she fights her way up the ladder to the maindeck as the ship groans and lists ever further starboard.

  
 _In this life_ , she thinks furiously as she gathers her power into her closed fists and hammers at the bolted hatch, fire sparking from the studs as she pushes with all her might and will. _In this life or not at all, Jones._

  
The hatch springs free just as a wave crashes over the tilting deck, the force of the water making her lose her footing so that she’s only able to cling onto the ladder with one hand until the cascade passes and she can clamber, spluttering, into the light.

  
The deck is slick under her feet with things she daren’t examine, the air thick with gunpowder and rank with the stench of bile and iron, the screaming of the cannonballs overheard dulled only by the thudding concussion of their own guns’ replies.

  
She spits hair from her mouth as she spins in a tight circle, peering through the fog of smoke and bitter yellow cordite until she spots the telltale dark smudge of an officer’s hat moving through the smog and it’s got to be him - got to be - only Killian Jones would still be properly attired as the world explodes around them.

  
“What are you doing?” the Captain’s gritted teeth white in his soot-dark face as he appears to grab her by the arm. “Why are you above? Get below!”

  
“To drown?” she cries over the sound of armageddon, the sky cracking red above her as another shot makes contact with their mainmast. “Or to save you the bad luck? Because I hate to tell you Captain, but your luck is long gone. This is my ship.”

  
She sees the moment his bloodshot eyes go wide, hears, somehow, impossibly, the sound of boots on the wet deck hammering towards the two of them, and then she’s pushed away, her feet slipping from beneath her as she stumbles and falls to her knees.

  
She opens her mouth to curse him, but the words die on her tongue as she looks up to see the blackened mainmast splinter away into a hundred pieces that shower down upon them like so many deathly raindrops. Emma curls into a ball, her hands coming up to protect her head until the terrible clatter stops. For a moment the world seems to stop, the battle pausing for a second of perfect stillness as she lifts her head from her knees.

  
Captain Jones lies before her, his arm stretched out towards the bow, a single dark, smouldering stake protruding from his chest and his eyes still wide as they stare, unseeing, at the sky.  
Killian is on his knees, his own hand inches away from his brother’s outstretched one, pinned to the deck by a splinter that’s perfectly bisected his wrist, his fingers twitching through their death throes.

  
She tastes ashes and blood, unable to turn away as his mouth forms Liam’s name with death-pale lips, the blood arcing from his wrist in a macabre rainbow - and the universe explodes.

  
Her people fear magic.

  
Regina’s men don’t have time to fear anything at all.

  
–

  
She stitches the shrouds from sailcloth and dark thread. Each blunted pass through the cloth ends with a prick to her palm that she half revels in and half loathes. The pain distracts her from the flies and stench as the bodies warp in the sun, but the softness of her hands acts as a fierce reminder of her guilt. Of her failure.

  
She watches Captain Jones’ last slide into the ocean, and lets the muted splash ring out his hollow victory.

  
“Admiral Swan?” asks a thin voice at her elbow. “The lieutenant is asking for you?”

  
The powder boy says it like a question, like he can’t quite believe that Jones could possibly want to see her.

  
She knows how he feels.

  
“Miss?” he says again, and she turns to face him. His countenance is still stained black above the cloth he wears around his mouth to protect himself, whereas his hands are raw from scrubbing. He’s trembling slightly under her gaze as she forces words past dry lips.

  
“What’s your name?”

  
She expects him to wince, but instead he lifts his chin higher and fixes steady brown eyes on hers.

  
“Henry,” he says.

  
She wants to repeat it, but it won’t roll off her tongue, her mouth full with the names of all the men she’s committing to the sea, of the dead.

  
“Tell the lieutenant, Henry, that I’m taking roll.”

  
Those steady brown eyes rove over the bloated waves of sailcloth, and he nods.

  
“Aye, Admiral. I’ll tell him.”

  
–

  
She heads down at dusk, the careful application of a cloaking spell enough to set her heart at ease until she’s back in the bowels of the ship where the blood smells fresher and her guilt is no longer so important.

  
It’s quieter now. Most of the surgeon’s work is done and, with the liberal application of poppy powder, most of those who’ve survived his knife have succumbed to a dreamless sleep.

  
Lieutenant Jones is, of course, the exception.

  
She doesn’t know how long he’s been lying on his uninjured side, his eyes fixed on the door to the Captain’s quarters, before she tentatively slips through it, but she suspects it’s long enough that guilt rises unbidden once again.

  
“The boy said you were taking roll call,” he says, his voice barely a croak, and she busies herself with a water jug so as not to look at him when she answers.

  
“I was.”

  
He hums, and she risks a glance only to see his face twisted, not in pain, but in sympathy.

  
“My brother?”

  
For a moment she thinks he’s forgotten, blocked out the horror of it all just to keep breathing, but then she looks again and realises what he’s truly asking.

  
“I did my best by him.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
She frowns, carrying a cup of water to his bedside and kneeling to lift it to his parched lips.

  
“Why?”

  
He splutters a little as he drinks and she moves to fetch a cloth, but he stops her with his hand on her wrist. His only hand.

  
“You saved us.”

  
“I did no such thing,” she snaps, withdrawing her hand and sitting back on her haunches. “I was a distraction, a curse, just like Captain - just like Liam - ”

  
She doesn’t even realises the tears have started to fall until she feels the pad of his thumb against her cheek, cold, too cold, but still alive. Still here.

  
“You saved us,” he says again, his eyes shining. “You saved me. Well,” he shifts on the bed and winces. “Most of me. Your magic - ”

  
“Don’t,” she scoffs, but there’s a smile hovering just behind the tears. “Drink your water, we’re going home.”

  
“Aye, Admiral,” he says, his eyelashes fluttering shut against his grey cheeks, and she can’t help it. She leans forward, and presses the gentlest of kisses to his clammy brow.

  
“Emma,” she whispers. “It’s Emma.”

  
He doesn’t answer.

-

  
They limp into port at dawn with the help of two tugboats, their list too pronounced to risk approach alone.

  
There are no banners flying and cheering hordes this time, only two pale figures waiting in the mist and a half dozen carts lined up behind them, the mules’ breath floating in hot clouds, and only Emma on deck to see it.

  
The cartiers embark first, their faces grim, and she hears the shouts from below as they divide their loads of human flesh, but she can’t turn away from her parents, her hands drawn into tight fists at her sides as she searches their expressions for a hint of disappointment, a flash of anger.

  
All she sees is relief, and that hurts worst of all.

  
–

  
She doesn’t retire entirely - they are still at war after all - but her parents won’t risk her out on the front lines now that word of her magic will have spread. So she hangs her bloodstained uniform on the back of her office door, lets her eyes travel over it every time there’s news of another battle, and whispers the names of the dead to herself at night.

  
Henry taps on her door, his new Staff uniform buttons glowing a burnished gold in the light of the setting sun.

  
“It’s late, Admiral,” he says, and she closes her eyes against the sudden burn of tears. “Your parents - your parents are expecting you.”

  
“I’m not hungry,” she says, smudging map lines beneath her fingers. “Tell them I’m in council.”

  
“With who?” Henry asks, and she snaps her head up to glower at him. He is unbowed,merely shrugging slightly as she narrows her eyes. “I hear Lieutenant Jones makes a good recovery.”

  
“Delighted to hear it,” she answers. “You are dismissed, Henry.”

  
“He asks after you, you know,” Henry continues. “All the time.”

  
“Dismissed, Henry.”

  
“Aye Admiral,” he says, snapping a smart salute and turning on his heel. “I’ll tell them you’re in council.”

  
–

  
Council, as it turns out, lies in a small cottage on the very outskirts of the town with a single oil lamp burning in an upper window and chickens pecking around the door even as dusk sends long shadows across the cobbled yard.

  
“Your chickens are free, lieutenant,” she calls as she slips through the unlatched door. “Such poor discipline is likely to be taken advantage of by the local vixen, wouldn’t you say?”

  
Silence is her only answer, and she casts her cloak off, laying it over the back of the single wooden chair and eyeing the half eaten rye bread on the table, the thick liquid spilt across the surface.

  
“Lieutenant?” she calls, nerves clawing at her throat as she notes the cold ash in the fireplace, the shards of glass against the far wall. “Are you here?”

  
She hears a thud and a groan from upstairs and, regretting her choice to leave her sword behind, reaches for a solid tree branch that’s resting against the table leg and cautiously mounts the stairs.  
What she sees at the top stops her dead in her tracks, the stick falling helplessly to the floor and clattering away behind her down the stairs.

  
“Lieutenant?”

  
Lieutenant Jones, or at least the man bearing his face, glares at her from where he sits, half dressed on the edge of a rickety bed. The air smells sourly of vomit and there’s a dark stain on the sheet he roughly pulls up around his bare torso.

  
“There’s no one here by that name,” he spits. “Leave me be.”

  
“Hardly,” she answers, stepping forward to catch at the edge of the blanket and tear it away to inspect the mark. “And leave you to bleed out?”

  
He lies back, closing his eyes as his hair falls in his face, his stunted arm lying purple-red and swollen at his side.

  
“It would be a kindness,” he groans. “To a man who wishes only for peace.”

  
“Well if you will have peace,” she says, lifting his arm and wincing as the colour drains from his face. “Prepare for war. Isn’t that what they say? Now stay still.”

  
“Yes, Admiral,” he mutters indistinctly as she brushes his overlong locks from his forehead and runs a critical eye over the sweat that beads there. “As you wish.”

  
“Emma,” she says, steadier this time, and when he opens his watery eyes she can feel more than see the smile that tugs at his chapped lips.

  
“Emma,” he sighs. “I’m going to be sick.”

  
–

  
His fever breaks somewhere around midnight, and she watches the as colour comes back into his cheeks, until she dares risk leaving him long enough to set the kettle over the fire and attempt to soothe her own jangling nerves.

  
Something catches her eye as she sifts through the ashes, something that glitters even in the dirt of the hearth and somehow strangely familiar. She plucks it out and wipes it on the edge of her cloak, her mouth going dry as she recognises her own face emblazoned on the golden surface, the bright ribbon dulled and singed by the flames but still achingly recognisable.

  
“Were you going to tell me you won this?” she demands, holding the medal out in front of her from the foot of his bed. “This is the highest honour - ”

  
“I know what it is,” he says bitterly. “I don’t want it.”

  
“Why because the colour isn’t quite regulation? Killian, come on - ”

  
“It should be my brother’s,” he snaps. “You know that as well as I. Or yours. You saved my worthless life back there, what did I do? Failed you both, nothing more.”

  
“That’s not true, you sent me below - I’d have been killed outright on deck, you knew that - ”

  
“ _Liam_ knew that. I was only following his orders. It’s as you’ve always said, Emma. I was never anything but a lapdog following at the beck and call of my betters, and now - ” he lifts his arm, the puckered skin shining in the oil lamps dim light. “I am nothing at all.”

  
Emma drops the medal, and shuffles forward until her knees are on the mattress, her hands reaching for the ruined flesh.

“That’s not true,” she whispers. “It’s not true.”

  
Killian twists away from her and slumps back down in the bed, his eyes squeezed shut.

  
“I thank you for your kindness, Admiral. But your sympathy is more than I can bear.”

  
“Very well,” she says, dropping her hands to her sides and backing away. “I bid you goodnight, Lieutenant.”

  
(There’s a feather on the yard, and a smear of blood where the vixen has dragged away her prey.)

  
–

  
She lasts three days before she snaps, rising at dawn and donning her smartest uniform before striding out to the edge of town.

  
“You won’t believe this,” she says from her seat at his kitchen table, her correspondence spread in front of her while he gapes blearily at her from the stairs. “I specifically asked Captain Grace to write to me in black ink and yet,” she lifts the letter, and waves it in his general direction. “Blue again.”

  
“Why are you - ” he murmurs, scrubbing a hand over his bearded face. “Why are you here?”

  
“You’re my attache aren’t you? Listen, between you and I, the boy Henry’s writing leaves a little to be desired - I requested a schoolmaster for him but my mother has rather taken a shine to him and taken him under her wing - ”

  
“No, I mean, no, I’m not - ”

  
“Dressed appropriately?” she lets her eyes wander over the broad planes of his chest and allows an eyebrow to raise as she studies the line of hair on his belly. “I see that. Out of starch are we, Lieutenant?”

  
“Emma,” he groans, aghast, and she twists around so that she’s facing him over the back of the chair.

  
“What?”

  
“There is a war on,” he says, his head resting in his hand, “you can’t possibly - ”

  
“Care about the ink Captain Grace writes his painfully dull missives in? No, I don’t. At all. But you used to, and I do - I do care about you.”

  
Her voice peters off as he seems to fold in half, sitting suddenly on the stairs as though his legs, so sure at sea, have forgotten how to hold him up against the waves of her words.

  
“Emma,” he begins, but she pushes away from the table and comes to kneel before him, her hands on the stained knees of his breeches.

  
“Killian,” she says, tilting her head until he’s forced to meet her eyes. “I miss you. Come back to me, please.”

  
“I thought I was an irritating, prissy little bastard,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching as her face flushes red.

  
“You are,” she grumbles, lifting her hand to run her thumb over the pink of his cheek. “But you make yourself useful.”

  
“How so?” he asks, and suddenly they’re back on the solid deck of the Jewel, their faces a breath apart and a thousand unspoken words hanging in the space between.

  
“Oh,” she whispers, parting her lips and closing the gap until she’s sinking into him, against him, his lips soft and rum bitter. “In any way you can.”


End file.
